How to know if a mobo will support a Turion?

[RCSea]

Hi,

After reading an article on using the Pentium M as a desktop proc, I started looking at both the Pentium M and the Turion for use in a low-power file server I was planning to build for my home network. However, I'm a bit stuck. AMD doesn't seem to want to encourage people to build desktop systems using the Turion, so there's very little information about compatibility to be found. I know you can't just plug one into any old socket 754 board. I was wondering if anyone knew what criteria a board needs to meet in order to work with a Turion processor? For example, one board I liked is this one from ABit:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16813127214

since it has onboard vid, gig lan, and sata/raid. Perfect for a file server. But will it take a Turion? How would I know?

Thanks,
-rc

 

[Heckler 5th]

it depends solely on whether the board's manufacturer cared enough to make a turion-compatible BIOS. the only board i know for a fact that supports turion is mine (see sig). all BIOS versions for the DFI 250Gb since march have supported turion, i think (do a search at http://www.dfi-street.com). but it doesn't have onboard video. google is probably your only hope here, as manufacturers' tech support will probably all tell you to get bent concerning turion.

i'm probably wrong about this, but there might be a chance (a slim chance) that any BIOS that supports the rev. E semprons (90nm, palermo core) may also support turion. but i'm picking straws on that one.

 

[RCSea]

Thanks. That's what I figured. I did a cost/benefit analysis, and it seems like just going with a Venice core 3000+ and a cheap ATI X300SE vid card wouldn't really draw much more power at idle than a Turion based solution. Certainly not worth the limited upgrade potential down the road and defintely less money saved on electrical than the higher cost of the parts over 5 years. And the Pentium M solution was even worse, $515 for the proc and mobo alone, to save maybe $30 in power costs per year over a $315 AMD 64 Venice solution. Hm.

-rc

 

[ND40oz]

Originally posted by: Heckler 5th
i'm probably wrong about this, but there might be a chance (a slim chance) that any BIOS that supports the rev. E semprons (90nm, palermo core) may also support turion. but i'm picking straws on that one.

I would tend to think this too, I'd also tend to believe you may have better luck with a nForce4 or RS480 based 754 board, the RS480 having onboard video. Hopefully we'll see some C51 boards out soon.